


The Distance Between Stars

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Arguing, Barebacking, Birthday Sex, Biting, Desire, Dinner Date, Hotel Sex, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Mentions of Previous Relationships, Mild Blood, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rough Kissing, Sex, Sexual Tension, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Ten years later, Shiro and Keith finally reconnect in a way neither of them had thought to allow for themselves.Shiro's gaze sharpens suddenly. Like a lion fixed on its chosen prey, its concentration unwavering, and it takes the very breath from Keith. When was the last time he had been the focus of such a look outside of the battlefield?Years."I like a lot of things," Shiro replies, poking around his bowl with his chopsticks until he finds a piece of pork and picks it up. His gaze still burns, the gray like a sword-tip pointed right at Keith's throat. "Some because they're the things I've known. Others because they're the best. And some. . ." He licks his lips, and when he speaks again, the corners of his mouth take a slow upturn. ". . .are both."Keith swallows and prods at his own bowl of noodles. How much time has passed? Should he count it down in days and months and years? Or by missed chances? Maybe the wounds he collected and how long it took to heal from them?
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 184





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to part one of Shiro's birthday fic! The whole thing ran away with me a bit so Part 2 should be coming in the next day or so <3 This was inspired by a fic prompt that talked about how when a heart breaks it leaves cracks or fissures on the Earth - so what would be the story of the Grand Canyon? From this, and the idea I had about ramen dinners and talks of marriage, this little story was born. I hope you all enjoy it — and Happy Birthday to the good boy, Takashi Shirogane! (Even if this starts a little angsty, I promise there is a nice happy ending to it, in case that isn't evident by where this part leaves off.)
> 
> And as always, feel free to come yell at me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bymidnightflame)!

If this story must be told, then let it be known that this is the one about human hearts and how they come to be hollowed out and carved down, becoming an intricate network of gullies and steep climbs. As breathtakingly beautiful as they are dangerous.

*

"My grandfather used to bring me here all the time. Before we jumped continents and the Garrison became everything I knew."

Shiro says it with all the fondness of memory, his chopsticks poised just before his lips. Noodles hang from them, and for each word, Keith can count the drips of light brown liquid that fall back down into his bowl of ramen. He glances over, gray eyes shining bright as summer sparklers, and slurps up his mouthful. Keith imagines that must be the magic of memories, too. 

The good ones. 

Those ones you just can't let go of so you keep them burning in some backroom, all to go warm yourself by when the world grows a little too cold. 

Had the world become that for them? 

Keith feels the smile pull at his lips, a token gesture. "I'm guessing this is the best place for it."

Shiro laughs. It's a wondrous thing, quiet and certain. Completely unfettered, but still respecting the fact that they're sitting in a public space. Even if the restaurant is nothing more than a back alley dive. Keith had counted six seats at the counter and four tables pressed against the back wall that made the MFE cockpits feel like the Grand Canyon. 

He flicks a glance over at Keith, his lips parted slightly. They're slick with broth, and Keith hates how he can't help himself from wanting to know what they taste like. If it would remind him of the salt of tears or be something so entirely foreign to his tongue, he'd have to spend a lifetime figuring out how to describe it just right. 

"I don't know, actually," Shiro admits with a sheepish grin. How this man can seem so boyish at the age of thirty-seven, Keith doesn't know. But at that moment, Shiro looks like youth renewed, and maybe that's one of the tricks of memories, too. "It's not like we worked our way around the country trying to find the best ramen spot. This is just the one I know best..."

Keith huffs out a laugh. The sound of it borders on a sigh, and Shiro immediately lifts an eyebrow in question at him. 

"So, you like the things you know, even if they're not the best," Keith says, unable to help the tease in his voice. 

Shiro's gaze sharpens suddenly. Like a lion fixed on its chosen prey, its concentration unwavering, and it takes the very breath from Keith. When was the last time he had been the focus of such a look outside of the battlefield? 

Years.

"I like a lot of things," Shiro replies, poking around his bowl with his chopsticks until he finds a piece of pork and picks it up. His gaze still burns, the gray like a sword-tip pointed right at Keith's throat. "Some because they're the things I've known. Others because they're the best. And some. . ." He licks his lips, and when he speaks again, the corners of his mouth take a slow upturn. ". . .are both."

Keith swallows and prods at his own bowl of noodles. How much time has passed? Should he count it down in days and months and years? Or by missed chances? Maybe the wounds he collected and how long it took to heal from them?

He wrinkles his nose and scratches at the underside of his wrist. 

"Does it still bother you?"

Keith jerks his head up and stares at Shiro. A shudder runs through his right hand, nearly causing him to drop his wooden chopsticks into his bowl. Does it bother him? What part, he wants to ask, but there’s no point in looking for that answer now. 

With a breath and a shift of his gaze toward the front door, he replies, “No. It happened years ago. . .so, it doesn’t bother me anymore. No more than any of yours would.”

“I should have been there for you.”

“You had other things to attend to on Earth.”

“That still doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have been there.”

“It healed up. The universe is safe for now. I moved on. There’s nothing more to it.”

Shiro flinches, a bare spark of motion, fizzling just as fast as it flared. He fishes around his ramen bowl with his chopsticks, then lets out a sigh. His whole body moves with the act: shoulders dropping, chest deflating with the expelled breath, fingers relaxing their grip, mouth forging a small frown. 

“I still should have been there,” he says.

What is he supposed to do with that? Keith grits his teeth, hoping the scowl doesn’t show itself even as he feels it emerge. As if opening up old wounds is ever that simple. Like tossing a winning card hand across the table. No triumph there, only a prize of raw, unresolved emotions and a heart beating furious with pain. Averting his gaze, Keith grinds the end of his chopsticks against the bottom of the bowl. An attempt to drown a rogue piece of green onion. He suspects there’s nothing proper about the act, but bleeding his feelings all over the table probably wouldn’t be either.

“Maybe you should have come here with someone else. . .”

“Like who?”

“Your grandfather.”

“He passed before I graduated from the Garrison.”

“Your parents.”

“They always hated this place.”

“Curtis.”

“We don’t talk anymore.” A pause. “Besides, he was never someone I thought about bringing here.”

Shots fired. A heart sinks beneath the waves. Keith sucks in a breath and refocuses his gaze on the bit of green onion that refuses to remain among bottom-feeders of his ramen bowl. Running his tongue against the backs of his teeth, he considers those words and everything else towed along in their wake. 

“So he’s —”

“Still at the Garrison,” Shiro finishes. “He works with ground control now.”

Keith snorts, the sound having all the effect of a wrecking ball crashing against cement. “I can’t blame him, I guess.”

“I don’t blame him either.”

The blatant honesty in that statement catches Keith off guard. He looks up at Shiro then and finds the man staring at him like he’s never known someone more intimately in his life. 

He looks at Keith like he’s found home. 

“Did you even try to make it work after that?” Keith asks. Emotion runs his throat dry, his words coming out rough and unsteady. He almost regrets saying anything at all.

Shiro shakes his head. “I basically left him standing at the altar, Keith.” He lets out a mirthless laugh, and yet something in his eyes says there’s amusement to be found in that somewhere. Maybe the fool’s variety, the only sort of amusement you can find when you look back on past hurts. “I don’t think there’s any coming back from that. Besides, at that point, I realized I didn’t want to make it work.”

“You shocked everyone.”

His heart races. Keith licks his lips and finally gives up on the green onion. It floats along the top of his broth, eventually tangling with a few leftover bits of spinach. This time, when Shiro laughs, it’s deep and hearty, completely shameless. “Yeah. The Garrison recommended I take leave for a few weeks after that. . .”

“ _Recommended_ , huh?” Keith can’t help but laugh a little as well. 

“You know how it is,” Shiro says, flashing a wry grin over at Keith. “Just another thinly veiled order you have no right to refuse.”

Whether the Garrison or the Blades, Keith knew the way such statements could chain you down. Sometimes, the last thing you wanted was to be forced alone with yourself. To “reconsider” your actions. As if they could simply go back and erase the choices made and all their consequences. There were no clean slates in this world, only new beginnings. Besides, Keith never thought he made great company for himself. He spent more time shoving his emotional wreckage into closets, creating new ones inside of himself for every heart-scarring event, than he did dealing with the fallout. Maybe if he had, he would be at a different place in his life right now. 

Even if this was the only place he could think of being on this day, at this hour. 

“Lance said you took some time off after that as well.”

Keith rubs at his wrist again. A small frown twists his lips, but rather than letting it have its way with his mouth, he forces a tight smile across it instead. “It was recommended.”

“Huh. . .”

That’s all Shiro says to that. Just a pop of sound, loaded in the way a gunshot several blocks away tends to be. Where someone is likely left bleeding or dead, another person on the run, and all the while the world keeps moving forward. A distant sound full of someone else’s life-changing knowledge. 

“Why did you leave him, Takashi?”

The use of his first name does something to Shiro. Keith has seen it one other time. When he congratulated Shiro on accepting the ring. _Takashi_ had been the word of choice then too. And while it’s not exactly the same, the effect is still readily evident. The widening of Shiro’s eyes, making the gray as translucent as moonglow, and the slight parting of his lips. He looks ten years younger, caught by surprise like that, and it makes Keith’s heart ache for reasons he had long since told himself to stop listening to. Shiro furrows his brow, looks down into his nearly empty bowl of ramen, then breathes out. A smile flickers over his lips. With a nod of his head, he glances up at Keith.

“Do you remember that morning?”

“Parts of it.”

A lie. He remembers everything. Some heartbreaks sink into your DNA like that. 

“I honestly don’t remember all that much about the morning. I remember how old that house smelled and thinking that was only natural. It had been built over a century ago, so of course, it would smell like that. But all the furniture was modern.” As Shiro talks, he sets his chopsticks aside and settles his hands over the tabletop. His left index finger moves in small circles, tracing imaginary planets over the woodgrain. “There was a tray of champagne on the dresser, and the wedding coordinator had just stepped outside to go check on the chair placement for the ceremony. You walked in right after her.”

Shiro tips his head to the side and looks out at Keith through the fringe of his bangs. His hair is still startling white, like undisturbed snowfall in the mountains. Keith’s fingers twitch with the desire to brush the strands aside. 

“You had your hair tied back. It wasn’t quite long enough to braid back then. And you wore that white suit with a red tie,” Shiro continues quietly. 

And Keith could hate him right then, for the smile too soft over his lips and the small spark of fire in his eyes and the way his own heart beat like the second half of its soul was just within reach. 

“You said red in honor of where this all started. . .back when I had asked you to be my best man. You must have just showered because the room suddenly smelled like cedarwood and juniper. And you were trying so hard to smile. I don’t even remember what you were saying to me. I just. . . .” Shiro pauses to run his tongue over his upper lip. His fingers stop moving. “When I saw you there, I knew we wouldn’t be the same again if I went through with this.”

Fear closes its hands around his throat. Keith scrapes his nails along the tabletop.

_Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t fucking say it._

“But we weren’t.”

Keith glances toward the entrance. The shopkeeper has his hands on the door, holding it ajar, as he kicks at the wooden doorstopper that had been keeping it open. It had been strangely warm for the end of February, which is the only reason Keith can come up with for why the door had been left open in the first place. When they had entered an hour ago, Shiro had brushed aside the dark blue noren curtain with his right hand. The image of his fingers moving against the fabric jumps to the forefront of Keith’s mind, unwanted and so strikingly vivid. Shiro had the arm replaced shortly after the wedding debacle. It’s more like his previous Galra-designed arm — less bulky, attached at the shoulder but still in the white and pale blue that was now the notorious hallmark of Altean design.

He remembers that conversation too, carried out months later. Shiro explaining the change brought about by something Pidge had discovered. Keith had barely looked at it then, not that video calls were the best for detailed inspections.

The door closes with a grunt and a round of cheers from the patrons sitting at the bar. Regulars, Keith surmises dully. It’s only then that he notices the rain splattering against the stone walkway outside. Across from him, Shiro shifts in his seat. He prods at his chopsticks with the tip of his index finger, his human one, as if in repositioning it, he might unearth the words he needs. He doesn’t find them. Not right away. The next minute passes between them in silence, with Keith watching the rain drip from the navy curtain outside. Every so often, a puff of wind shifts the dark fabric. As the panels split, Keith catches glimpses of the alley beyond. The occasional passerby, brightly colored umbrellas popped open overhead like mutant foxglove flowers, scuttles past the shop. Not even a second glance given.

“I thought we were doing better now,” Shiro says. 

Keith feels the tug on the corner of his mouth. Whether it’s a smirk or a smile, he doesn’t really know. “I wouldn’t be here if we weren’t.”

“And here I thought you were just pitying me on my birthday.”

“There’s that too,” Keith replies. A smirk. That’s what had been trying to claim his lips. Keith can feel it now, along with the sharpness of his amusement. He tips his head back, shuts his eyes, and lets out a quiet sigh. “Pidge wouldn’t leave me alone until I said yes.”

“Did you not want to come?” Shiro asks.

Now, there’s a million-dollar question for you. Keith peeks at Shiro from the corner of his eye. He looks good, if he’s being honest about those sorts of things. Less tired than a year ago. A little less haunted. He’s put back on the weight he had lost, not that he looked starved by any means back then, but Keith has always known Shiro to be in prime shape. 

And, if he’s being honest —

“I wanted to come, Shiro.”

The tension eases from Shiro’s shoulders then, though a tightness remains in his smile that makes him look like he doesn’t know whether he’s stepped on a landmine or not. 

“I’m glad you did.” Shiro sits back in his chair. Running a hand through his hair, he glances toward the front door, then looks back at Keith. “And I’m sorr—”

He doesn’t hear the end of that. What he does hear, instead, is the roar of a thousand unsaid things, surging up from the depths. An army of undead words and thoughts and emotions all reviving at once. Keith had felt them, their fingers prodding the soil where he had once buried them all. He didn’t stop to think that maybe he hadn’t buried them deep enough to be forgotten. 

By the time he reaches the front door, Shiro’s voice barely reaches him through the onslaught of sound in his head. He’s calling out Keith’s name, in that same panicked, pained voice he remembers from too long ago. Before the Atlas was ever a thing. Back when the universe still needed saving and Shiro had been taken as a potential threat on Garrison grounds. 

The rain pours steadily from the sky. It’s still unseasonably warm outside, but there’s the promise of winter seeping into the air. Tomorrow everything will return to the way it’s supposed to be. 

Cold air and cold dreams. 

Keith glances down the alley, first right then left. The neon lights from the bar next door paint the pavement an electric pink that glows all the brighter under the rain. Further down the alley, cars drive along the main roadway. The sound of the tires splashing through puddles only worsens the noise overflowing inside of him. His head hurts. His heart hurts worse. And every breath he should have been taking over the last two minutes is trapped there in his chest, crushing his lungs.

“Keith!”

Someone pulls him back beneath the eaves of the ramen shop. The hand around his wrist is large and warm. The one at his hip is just as large, but lacking in warmth. Not that the fingers are cold. They’re just. . .there. Too close. Far too close. What Keith wouldn’t give to feel them slipping beneath his shirt, offering him the apology he had wanted instead of a handful of words spoken in a voice on the verge of breaking into something terrible and true. 

What he wouldn’t have given to walk away and forget. 

Ten years. Shouldn’t a decade contain enough seconds to bury a human heart? 

“Keith. . .”

He blinks. Raindrops cling to his eyelashes, obscuring his view. But even blind, he would know Shiro. 

“I don’t want to hear it!” Keith blurts out. “I didn’t come here for you to —”

Shiro’s lips are on his, and his mouth is open, and Keith is certain that Shiro has swallowed down the last of his protest. He fists his fingers in Shiro’s T-shirt, knuckles grazing against the zipper of his leather jacket. His lips part, not because Shiro’s mouth demands it, but because there’s a sob he can’t contain any further. All that he had been shoving down inside of his chest now breaking free.

And Shiro. . .he tastes like rain and bittersweet memories.

“It’s not fair, Shiro. . .” The words flow out of him, soft and broken against Shiro’s lips. A heart’s demise laid bare, and even worse, the hope that still clings to its remains. Keith glances up and catches Shiro staring down at him, wide-eyed and too human. _He’s beautiful_ is all Keith can think, and it devastates him. “. . I. . .couldn’t stop loving you.”

“Neither could I.”

“Shiro, what are you. . .”

“I couldn’t stop loving you.” 

Just fact. Pure and simple. That statement leaves no room for debate, and even if Keith had sought it, Shiro’s tone had shattered the potential for further argument. That is just how things are. Today is Shiro’s birthday. Fact. And there is rain falling steady from clouds that have hidden themselves in the dark of the night sky. Also fact. And right now, this man standing before him has a heart that beats for Keith alone. 

His whole expression crumples. Eyes squeezing shut, teeth gritting, lips pressed impossibly tight. The fingers clenching Shiro’s shirt curl in, nails scraping against fabric and skin, and still, Shiro stands there, letting him. When Shiro speaks, his voice sounds two syllables away from breaking down into jagged indecipherable bits. 

“That morning, when I saw you there all dressed up, Keith. . .I couldn’t stop myself from wishing it was you. I don’t even know where the thought had come from, and it. . .how could I move forward when the first real thing I felt on the morning of my wedding was how amazing it would be to stand across from you?”

“You said yes!” Keith cries out. “You said yes. . .”

Shiro’s brow knits together. He dips his head and brings his gaze level with Keith’s. They stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment, like two leopards trying to decide if the fight is worth it. And then, Keith exhales, and Shiro moves in to kiss him again. This time, Keith parts his lips and draws Shiro into him. The hand at his waist slides beneath the hem of his shirt. 

“Come back to the hotel with me,” Shiro breathes out. 

Keith nods his head slowly. All the world is a blur, but Shiro remains in sharp focus. The line of his shoulders, the rain dripping down the black leather of his jacket, the faint cut of muscle beneath his T-shirt, the gray of his eyes burning like the first dawn that ever broke over the world. Dropping his hand from Shiro’s chest, Keith brushes his fingers against his belt buckle. Shiro draws in an audible breath, then shudders out the exhale against Keith’s lips. 

“Let’s go.”

Keith nods again and pushes away from the wall he had backed up against. 

The walk to the main street, the taxi ride — Keith can barely recall any of it. What registered the most was Shiro’s hand wrapped around his own and the proximity of their bodies as they sat in the back of the cab while Shiro directed their driver in perfect Japanese. He’d never heard Shiro speak his home language, save for a few muttered curses he had thought were well under his breath. But hearing him speak it then had been no different than spilling gasoline all over the floor. The hands sliding up his chest, the lips at his throat as they rode the elevator up to Shiro’s hotel room had been the match dropped. 

What he would find in the ashes, Keith doesn’t know. 

For now, though, there’s only the heavy scent of Shiro pressed against him as he pulls the keycard out of his wallet and opens the door to his room with an electronic click and a flash of green light. 

“Did you even sleep here?” Keith asks, throwing a glance around the room.

Shiro is right behind him, summer-warm and just as full of life, as he wraps his arms around Keith and bites at the side of his neck. “I checked in last night. Fell asleep on the couch for a few hours. . .”

“And the rest of the time?”

“Walked around the city for a bit before I met you.”

Shiro’s hands are insistent, and Keith wants to give himself over to their demands. He’s fantasized about these sorts of things — Shiro wanting him more than he wanted anything else in the universe. It had to do with the way Shiro had looked at him sometimes. Like Keith was the only place his soul could settle. He remembers how they would often linger a few seconds too long after the end of a video conference call, saying nothing until they were pulled away by duty. 

“You must be tired. . .” Keith muses. 

“Not at all,” Shiro replies, sliding his left hand under Keith’s shirt once more. 

He shivers under that touch. The warmth of Shiro’s fingers, their strength as they drag across his skin, all of it igniting trails of fire. Lips find the nape of his neck, and Keith lets out a quiet moan. Then, everything goes still. Shiro shudders behind him, a full body shake, and his fingernails scrape across Keith’s stomach in an act that Keith is certain was entirely visceral in its making. 

What is he doing here?

Keith blinks away the fog in his head. They’d gone out for ramen, a pre-determined dinner (he had refused to call it a date even if he had known what he had agreed to, how the fire in Shiro’s eyes had shifted ever so slightly when he had said yes), and during that dinner, all the things he had thought to avoid pierced the fabricated tranquility of their meeting. Because there’s an intimacy between them that neither of them had ever been able to draw borders around, and it now sits as the cause of all his anguish for these last ten years and the end of Shiro’s would-have-been marriage. 

The inescapable forces of two souls who had fought against the inevitable. 

He had never once voiced his own desires to Shiro, and Shiro had dutifully side-stepped them every time. Who was to blame then? Himself? Shiro? It wasn’t as though he had sought refuge in someone else. He hadn’t agreed to a marriage he had never been fully committed to. But. . .

“Did you love me all this time?” Keith asks quietly. 

Shiro’s fingers relax, start drawing lazy circles around Keith’s navel. He lets out a soft hum and rests his chin on Keith’s shoulder. “When everything sort of fell apart at the end. . .the Lions leaving, Allura disappearing, I didn’t know what I wanted.”

Keith slides his hand under his shirt, then slips it beneath Shiro’s fingertips. 

“You said yes.”

Shiro swallows, the sound registering like a smoke alarm in Keith’s head. When he doesn’t answer, Keith pushes Shiro’s hand away and slips out of his grasp. He turns, running a hand roughly through his hair. The dark strands aren’t as long as they had once been. Not braid-worthy anymore. In a fit of nerves, Keith had taken a knife to his hair before arriving, only to have Krolia eye his new look disdainfully. She had cleaned it up, shaving the undersides and trimming the top. His bangs still dip into his eyes. Right now, he wishes it were enough to blind him. 

Because Shiro is still so damn beautiful, and there’s the promise of heartbreak in his eyes — Shiro’s heart this time, not Keith’s —and there’s nothing in the world Keith wants to protect more at this moment than Shiro’s heart. 

Only these are the things he can’t say right now. 

Not until Shiro speaks. 

It takes a moment before Shiro even moves. Eventually, though, he steps back and rubs a hand over his mouth. And Keith wonders if he isn’t smearing the words he wants say across his lips, and if Keith kisses him again would he be able to taste their meaning. 

Keith doesn’t kiss him. But his whole body aches with the desire for it.

“When Curtis asked me to marry him, I didn’t know what to say at first. So, he told me to think about it and left the ring with me. I hadn’t heard from you in weeks —”

Fury steals some of the fire Shiro had sparked within him, and before Shiro can finish that statement, Keith has him pressed up against the wall of the bedroom. A snarl rips itself from his throat. “Don’t you dare blame this on me!”

“I’m not!” Shiro counters. 

But even as his voice raises, the emotion doesn’t. It’s too honest a sound, and yet Keith can’t let him go. He keeps a hand pressed against Shiro’s chest, another pinning his wrist, and that feral desire to put his teeth to Shiro’s neck simmering hot at his core. 

“I’m not blaming you, Keith,” Shiro says more quietly. “But without you, it felt like I had to find myself again. And everyone at the Garrison thought I should try and start a life for myself outside of everything Voltron had been. . .it seemed like the logical choice, but not —”

“The right choice,” Keith finishes for him. 

His mouth steals whatever Shiro’s reply might have been. The kiss is desperate, a rough negotiation of all the emotions unsettled between them. Keith bites Shiro’s lower lip, then grins, unrepentant, at the sharp hiss Shiro emits and the spark of blood. He flicks his tongue against the spot of red, tips his head, and kisses Shiro again.

Once, where there had been too much sound, there is nothing. The beating of two hearts, a ragged breath cut short by another kiss, the muted street noise telling him that life still goes it. It always goes on. 

Shiro grunts as Keith pulls through on his promise and sets his teeth to Shiro’s neck. What the mark will look like in the morning, Keith doesn’t know. But it will exist, as surely as this moment between them does. He runs his tongue along the flourish of red and thinks about making another. 

Maybe one for every month they had ritually denied themselves the right to one another. 

Before he can create a second mark, Shiro wraps his free arm, the right one, around Keith’s body and lifts him as easily as he might a bag of groceries. Keith yelps, drawing a chuckle from Shiro that has no business being that low or sweet. In a matter of seconds, Keith’s back hits the king-sized mattress. 

“You were always the right choice, Keith,” Shiro says as he tugs off his jacket. 

Maybe those words should have hurt. Like plucking out the sutures on a wound not yet closed. A small ache for tonight, but by the morning, he’d be a bleeding mess again. Hearing them, however, did something entirely different to him. 

Acknowledgment when he least expected it. Completion when he had given up on it. All of it telling him he is here, by a choice made between the two of them. He could have kept walking when he left the ramen shop. But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to take the steps that would have carried him away from Shiro once again. 

Perhaps this is the reason they say fools fall in love. 

Flinging the jacket to the floor, Shiro sets his gaze on Keith. He takes a moment to drink in the sight, which Keith shamelessly lets him do. It’s not the first time he’s found Shiro’s eyes upon him, traveling the lines of his body. Keith just never bothered to assign more to it. Never stopped to think that if he had just inquired a little, by catching Shiro’s gaze with his own or shifting his body to draw further attention to himself, that this wouldn’t be the first time he’s finding himself in Shiro’s bed. He does it now, however, drawing his hands up his thighs and hooking his thumbs on the waist of his jeans. 

And as it goes with hook-line-and-sinker, Shiro’s attention snags on Keith’s fingers. 

“I should have been it from the start,” Keith states bluntly. 

Laughter floods the air. Shiro drags his fingers through his hair and stares down at Keith, his palm pressed to his head, fingers still tangled in the strands, and his laughter lighting up the night around them. 

“How am I supposed to deny that?” Shiro asks.

Keith smirks, the gesture slow to form and sharp as a hunter’s knife. “You’re not.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for joining me for the second half of Shiro's birthday fic! Things got a little hectic over here so it's a bit delayed in the posting >_< I hope you all enjoy the conclusion, and if you do, feel free to drop me a line here or come yell at me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bymidnightflame)!
> 
> And for my song choice for this part: [PVRIS - Old Wounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VARhOKmhX0U)

_He’s not._

Not supposed to deny years of existing beside Keith in silence. Or making the wrong choice because a settled plan seemed better than riding on the promise of another future he wasn’t sure he could grab. He’s not supposed to deny the fact that, at this moment, there is nothing he wants more than the man currently lying on the bed that he has yet to sleep in himself. Shiro lets his gaze linger on Keith’s fingers, where they remain hooked around the waist of his jeans. His pants are black denim, ripped at the knees in what, Shiro suspects, is the state in which they had been sold. The faded patches over the thighs, however, probably came from constant wear. More time spent in the sun than most would assume of him. But Keith had always had a strange affinity for the outdoors. He seemed more of the natural world than the one carved out by man and machine, even if he now deftly navigated both.

That smirk over his lips, though. . .it reminds Shiro that not all has been tamed about Keith. Cocky in the way all top predators might be, knowing full well their place in the food chain. Undisputed in their right to sit at the top. 

He’s always liked that feral aspect to Keith. What the Garrison called his _fiery determination_ on the best days and _lawless disregard_ on others, Shiro only ever saw as part of Keith’s potential to be great. 

An alluring prospect that turned into something far more seductive over the years. 

He chuckles as he sets his hands on Keith’s thighs and finds himself a place between them. Shiro doesn’t miss the way Keith had shifted his legs, complying with the subtle press of his palms against them. For all the unsaid between them, there are things like this as well — the quiet conversations they’ve always held between body and soul. Continuing to slide his hands further along those thighs, he glances up to catch Keith’s gaze with his own, and nearly stops dead in his tracks at the look there. 

It’s not accusing, but it burns in a way that demands honesty. For the past, their present, and whatever future sits before them. 

As if there could be anything else but the truth between them now. 

With his body slotted between Keith’s thighs, Shiro lowers himself with all the slow precision of a tiger crouching before an unsuspecting antelope. Every ounce of him accounted for. Not that Keith is entirely unaware, but there’s a moment, brief but brilliant, where his eyes widen as Shiro’s cock presses down against Keith’s groin. Only half-hard but the effect readily evident. A smirk slides over his mouth. Keith lets out a laugh, and it’s as amused as it is beautiful. 

“I’m done denying you,” Shiro says, each word carefully enunciated. His eyes lock with Keith’s. His lips brush against his mouth. All he does is breathe out, a single slow breath, until Keith’s lips start to curve into one utterly damning smile, and all Shiro can do is kiss him. 

They never stop looking at one another, their eyes reading every little pass of emotion. Something must click for Keith because his hands slip beneath the hem of Shiro’s T-shirt, and he parts his lips. The way his tongue flicks against the seam of Shiro’s mouth draws a soft moan from him, one Shiro is entirely unashamed of, even as he feels the faint smirk tugging on Keith’s lips in reply. 

There are worse ways for a man to end. 

Inch by inch, Keith works the fabric of his T-shirt up along his torso. And all the while, Shiro keeps kissing Keith like this is the bargaining chip between their hearts. One swipe of a tongue, another incentive to continue betting on this potential between them. Shiro rolls his hips. Keith breaks his composure. A moan, low and sweet, moves over Shiro’s lips, and Shiro can’t help but lick them, enamored. Beneath him, Keith is a living flame. So easily could he burn him, set this whole place on fire and walk away, never looking back like all natural disasters do, but instead, he remains in place. 

Quietly burning. 

With a tug on Shiro’s shirt, Keith drops his head back to the pillow. “Take it off.”

Shiro lifts an eyebrow, but he complies, sitting back and reaching for the hem of his T-shirt. Keith’s hand stops him. His fingers wrap tightly around Shiro’s left hand, forcing him to go still. Their eyes meet again.

“Everything. Take it all off.”

He blinks. Keith is still there, back to the bed, and his gaze locked on Shiro. His bangs splay out over his forehead, featherlight and as dark as the desire in his eyes. Shiro feels himself torn between countering that demand and leaning in to brush the black strands away from Keith’s face. As if, by doing so, he might expose a little more of Keith in the process. 

Keith lifts an eyebrow at him in turn. Shiro ends up laughing instead. He shakes off Keith’s hand, caving in completely. When he pushes himself off the mattress, Keith drops his hand across his chest, where his fingers tease the hem of his own shirt. There’s a sliver of his stomach visible, along with the jut of his left hip, and it all leaves Shiro wondering how such small gestures can make him ache more than all the dreams he’s had of fucking Keith over his office desk. 

“Everything?” Shiro asks.

“Everything.”

Shiro grips the hem of his shirt, and with a pointed look directed right at Keith, pulls it off in one fluid motion. He gives his hair a good ruffle afterward, then drops the T-shirt somewhere in the vicinity of his jacket. After locking the hotel room door behind him, he’d barely stumbled out of his boots before wrapping his arms around Keith and igniting this whole. . . _thing_ currently in play between them. All that’s left are his socks, his jeans, and what's underneath those jeans. 

He pauses, hand on the zipper of his pants. Keith settles his head into an awaiting palm, having shifted onto his side to survey Shiro’s dismantling unhindered. A smirk teases the corner of his mouth, and Shiro has the distinct desire to kiss it right off his lips. As if sensing that, Keith runs a hand down along his side and settles it over his hip. That sliver of skin still peeks out from beneath his T-shirt, the dark gray fabric a startling contrast to his pale skin. Shiro had always imagined him more tanned for some reason. Perhaps it’s all those photos of him he’d seen of Keith out in the sunlight. It wasn’t as though his Blade uniform allowed for much skin exposure. 

Funny the way the mind makes leaps and paints pictures from a few incomplete facts. Like it simply couldn’t handle not knowing how the story would end. 

Keith gestures toward him, a delicate opening of his palm, fingers fluttering as if to say _get on with it_. Shiro snorts, tips his head up haughtily, and pops open the button of his jeans. The zipper gets dragged over its teeth unceremoniously. A quick undoing that would have had him sighing in relief. His cock still aches. 

_Everything_ , Keith mouths at him. 

Shiro stares him down, momentarily defiant. They both know what the end result of this will be, but something in him wants Keith to acknowledge just how badly he wants it. To know that he’s not alone in these feelings of absolute need. 

He drags his pants down, lifting each leg to tug them off along with the corresponding sock. All that’s left are his boxer-briefs, white elastic band at the top, completely black otherwise. Even after all these years, he found it hard to abandon the color black. 

Shiro cups himself through the thin fabric, and as he does so, a flush spills across his cheeks, light pink and taking him by surprise. Keith looks like he’s appraising a hoverbike he’s fallen in love with, already imagining all the ways he might tear across the desert on the ride of a lifetime. A fair assessment, Shiro reasons. He slides his thumbs beneath the waistband of his undershorts. Keith sits up suddenly. There’s no attempt to reach out and stop him, but the effect is all the same. Shiro pauses. Keith keeps staring intently at him. Then, ever so slowly, his lips start to curve in a smile as stunning as it is deadly, and Shiro feels the very core of him tremble before it.

“You can leave those on. . .for now,” Keith says.

Shiro lets out a breath and drops his hands. _Leave them on_ , he says. And he’s never been so turned on. Palming at his cock, Shiro inhales. He kicks his pants off to some soon-to-be-forgotten location and drops a knee back onto the bed. 

As he crawls back into place between Keith’s legs, Keith rolls onto his back again. His hands slide up the exposed skin of Shiro’s chest, fingers pausing to explore each nipple, before moving up and wrapping around Shiro’s shoulders. Shiro sucks in a breath at the touch, which seems to delight Keith, who smirks up at him like he’s just been handed the universe. To rule to his complete and utter liking. 

Lowering himself back down, Shiro lets out a soft growl as Keith nips at his lower lip. It still throbs from where he had bitten it previously, a little swollen but not really painful by any stretch of the word. Fingers skate across his upper back. Occasionally, they run along his neck, teasing his hair. He’s kept it as short as before, though it’s been a few weeks since he last had it shaved. A fact Keith seems intent on studying as his fingertips trace the edges of his hairline over and over. 

“It’s soft,” he murmurs.

Shiro chuckles low in his throat. “Did you think it would be something else?”

That smirk returns, ruling over Keith’s mouth like a rightful king reclaiming his crown. He shrugs, drags his fingers along the lines of Shiro’s shoulders, and slowly wraps his legs around Shiro’s waist. 

“I guess not all things change with age.”

“I’m not —”

Before he can finish, Shiro finds himself staring up at the ceiling. It’s white plaster, completely unmarked. As pristine a white as a newborn soul might be. 

It’s Keith who reorients him. With his hands skimming the lines of each rib in succession, Keith has situated himself over Shiro’s hips. He’s heavier than Shiro remembers, which strikes him as an odd thought at the moment, considering he had practically thrown the man onto the bed just minutes before. He swallows as Keith presses his palm over the space of his heart. For a moment, they stay just like that, with Keith closing his eyes and Shiro completely enrapt. 

Is he able to feel the way his heart is beating like some pinball set loose inside of his chest? Just pingpingpinging, each beat a hard-hitting confession. This is what Keith does to him.

What Keith has always done to him.

Eyelids open slowly, then stop at half-mast. Keith’s eyes are still gorgeous, and clouded with desire as they are now, the purple takes on a smokey edge. The hand over his heart moves, fingers now tracing the line of Shiro’s collarbone. 

“How long?” Keith asks, his gaze drifting between the work of his fingers and Shiro’s steady gaze.

“How long?”

Keith nods. He turns his fingers onto their nail-edge, then begins dragging them down Shiro's chest. They’ll leave red marks, of that Shiro is certain. Not enough to bleed, but enough to make him feel this moment between them. 

“How long have you felt this way about me?”

That question hits him like a dagger-point run down the line of his jugular. A threat unfulfilled. Or just that devastating need to know how it all went wrong. 

Shiro sucks in a breath, holds it deep in his lungs as he stares down Keith, then lets it out in one careful exhale. “Since we were stranded on that planet together. . .when you first piloted Black.”

Keith’s hand spasms over his chest. Nails dig into skin. And it hurts in a way that Shiro is almost glad for. He reaches out and wraps his hand around Keith’s wrist. He never pulls his gaze away. 

“You should have said something,” Keith mutters, his words like broken puzzle pieces that would never fit anywhere. He drops his gaze, dark strands of hair obscuring his view, and bites down on his lower lip.

“I didn’t know,” Shiro murmurs. And that truth sits at his core, a spiked ball of emotional honesty that's been kicked around inside of him for years. “After everything that happened with Voltron and the Galra. . . .I didn’t even know who I was after I came back.”

“You acted like you did.”

But what Shiro hears is the thing Keith didn’t say — he saw the truth and had chosen to play along with the lie Shiro had decided to sell instead. 

“We had a war to fight and win,” Shiro says softly. He lifts his fingers from where they had gripped Keith’s wrist and begins working them up along his forearm. “And after that, I tried to lose myself in who that person was. . .I convinced myself there was a lot I needed. And things I didn’t need.”

“Like me.”

And never has something hurt more deeply than those two words, spilling over Keith’s lips in a voice that betrays a decade of wanting something his mind had told his heart he could never have. 

“I needed you more than I needed anything else, Keith.”

He watches as Keith’s lips part, and as his tongue pokes out and slides along the lower one, Shiro realizes the cost of those words. Because Keith had pulled his heart back from the edge of the universe. Only Shiro had never taken it back from him. He reaches up, cups Keith’s face, and forces himself to hold still as those lips find the heel of his palm. 

“You’re an absolute idiot, Takashi.”

Shiro lets out a laugh. Quiet and soft. Keith isn’t wrong in that. He’s never been one to admit to his own idiocy, particularly when he had convinced himself he was making the _logical_ decision. And yet when Keith finally calls him on it, Shiro knows he will never be able to deny it again. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, sitting up to meet Keith for a kiss. 

Their lips part, synchronizing, and Keith sighs into the act. His hand moves up Shiro’s chest, his touch light and strangely considerate. As if handling a newly fledged heart, only wanting to see it soar. Eventually, he presses his palms flat and pushes gently against Shiro. 

_Down_ , that single word formed against Shiro’s mouth. 

And he complies, pulling Keith with him as he falls back to the mattress, dragging his lips across Keith’s. The next kiss is thoroughly indulgent, a slow re-learning of all the things they had told themselves to forget but never could. What Shiro comes to find, surprisingly, is that he likes the way Keith pauses before he gives in, just a mere second or two, to lick his lips and take another breath. And right now, he tastes a little like the salt of soy sauce and the smoke of fire in winter. 

He could warm himself to the press of Keith’s lips against his own, all to live another day.

Eventually, Keith draws back to sit upon Shiro once more. He does so with a teasing nip, full of the promise of more to come, his fingers running a slow course down his chest. They pause at his hips, tracing the jut of bone there. 

Shiro tugs on Keith’s T-shirt. With a quirk of his right eyebrow, Keith sits back against Shiro’s thighs and glances down at the fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt. It’s not a terribly tight grip, but it is demanding. Keith shrugs, then smirks. Each gesture saturated with impish amusement. It has Shiro jerking sharply on Keith’s shirt, dragging him down for another kiss, fierce and just as demanding. Keith bites at his lips. Retaliation. With a sharp hiss, Shiro bites back and slides the T-shirt up along Keith’s back. 

“All’s fair. . .” Keith murmurs.

As Shiro pulls Keith’s shirt off, he answers with a grin, “This is love, not war.”

“Still makes everything fair,” Keith contests. He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair, and grins right back at Shiro. 

“Planning something now?” Shiro asks, dropping Keith’s shirt to the floor. 

Another shrug as Keith presses a palm flat to Shiro’s chest. The pressure steady and sure as he pushes his body against Shiro’s hips, and with it, Shiro finds his back flat to the mattress once more. “You know I always prefer to think as I go.”

A snort bursts out of him. Keith blinks in surprise, but Shiro has no apology for him. Instead, he reaches up and cups Keith’s right cheek. He traces the edge of the scar there. The guilt he had once felt upon seeing it has long since subsided, but touching it now seems to renew the sensation within his chest. Not as dark and heavy as it had been all those years ago. A ghost of a reminder, whispering of the history woven between them.

“Spitfire. . .that’s for sure,” Shiro murmurs. He doesn’t try to keep the ache of love and regret out of his voice. 

Keith’s brow knits together. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. Everything is there is his gaze, shifting his eye color from a hazy purple to the more solid blue-grey of resolving storm clouds. 

Shiro drops his hand to Keith’s shoulder, then slowly works his way down along Keith’s right arm. The progress is slow. Fingertips take their time running the curves of Keith’s muscles, the dip of his inner elbow, the dull pink of another old scar. A stark contrast to the white skin, starting as a thin fracture of a line near the elbow, then widening as it courses along his forearm like a ravine dug into the earth. Keith’s breath hitches as Shiro’s fingers hit the widest portion of it. Not wide enough to cover his whole forearm, but a good fifty-percent at least. Right at the center. Then, it tapers again as it nears his wrist. 

Another scar with a devastating story to tell. 

“What’s with that look?” Keith asks, his voice a small, fragile thing. 

Too honest.

Shiro knows neither of them will like the answer, and yet, he smiles through it. That too — the smile — is all gossamer and grief. Light upon his lips, genuine with his emotions, but not something that he could hold there. Too terrible a thing to keep in place. 

“Veronica is the one who told me about it,” Shiro says quietly. He continues to trace the lines of the scar for another moment, before bringing his hand to Keith’s side and starting in on another set of scars there. They’re smaller, but Shiro can tell they were deep wounds when inflicted. “It wasn’t long after everything. . .I think I had been out riding in the desert that day. She was standing outside my apartment door." A pause and a breath. "I know they didn't have you for long. . .but —”

“Shiro. . .”

He shakes his head at his name, lifting his gaze to meet Keith’s briefly then dropping it back to the scars he had been learning. Three of them etched neatly over Keith’s side. The central one extends out toward his stomach, just beneath his last rib. Shiro can almost imagine the shape of the bone beneath, curving beneath it like a shadow. 

“I wanted to go to you, you know. . .” Shiro admits then goes abruptly silent. He swallows around the odd lump in his throat, newly formed with edges he could only cut himself on, and forces out a laugh around it that comes out weak and strained. “They wouldn’t let me.”

Keith’s hand suddenly launches out and wraps around Shiro’s left wrist. His grip tight with fear-lead strength, he breathes out harshly. “Takashi.”

That name again. His. Shiro glances up, but what he finds isn’t old terror lurking in Keith’s gaze but the defiance that had long devoured it. All he can do is watch as Keith draws his hand up to his mouth and bites down slowly over the heel of his palm. His teeth graze, jaw slowly pulling together until his skin pinches between Keith’s incisors, and Shiro has to let out a small hiss of pain. 

With a smirk forming, Keith runs his tongue over the bite mark. He never takes his gaze off of Shiro’s, though. A steady soul-stirring stare. And all through it, that fire burning and burning. Shiro thinks he can see all their mistakes going up in flames.

“No more apologies,” Keith says.

Commands. That hadn’t been a request. It had been a door closing, locked, and the key tossed into the abyss where no soul could ever hope to find it again. 

With a roll of his hips, Keith presses a kiss to Shiro’s hand, then flicks his tongue against the mark again. “I agreed to come here with you. And we’re —”

“Beyond that now,” Shiro finishes for him. 

Keith nods, his shoulders dropping an inch. When had he started harboring that sort of tension in him? 

“Where’s the lube?” Keith asks, glancing around the room with all the inquisitive curiosity of a cat in a kingdom he’s just been told he gets to reign over. 

Lubricant. To make things easier. The idea of making things easier between them, more natural is something Shiro had long dreamed of and had dared to take a chance on when he flew halfway around the world to meet Keith in a city that had once been home. Hands settled on Keith’s thighs, Shiro starts to grin. The gesture doesn’t make itself complete, however, as he opens his mouth and simply laughs. 

Keith wants him.

“I haven’t even unpacked yet,” Shiro replies, the remnants of laughter lending a lightness to his words. 

With a considerate tip of his head, Keith glances at Shiro from the corner of his eye. A touch of judgment in that look that only makes Shiro laugh all the harder. Was it because he had the audacity to pack something like that, or because he’s been in this city for a day now and hasn’t even touched his suitcase? Keith shakes his head and slides off of Shiro. Feet now planted on the floor, he pushes away from the bed.

“There’re condoms in there too,” Shiro adds.

“Hoping to get lucky or something, Shiro?”

Keith doesn’t look at him when he asks that, but Shiro can hear the amusement in his voice. Not the judgmental sort from before but the one that’s admitted defeat and can only find the humor in its ending. 

“Yeah,” Shiro replies. “I think I was.”

The only answer he gets is a hard snort from Keith as he kneels by the luggage bag Shiro had left on the floor. He hears the zipper opening, a quick efficient sound, and rolls onto his side for a better look. All he has to see by is the spill of city lights and moonglow through the window, but it paints a beautiful picture. Keith on his knees, the muscles of his shoulders evident as well as a few other scars Shiro hadn’t gotten a chance to take in. Evidence of the lives they had led and what it took to free the universe from the hold of fear and tyranny. Keith’s hairline makes a stark contrast to the moon-silvered skin just beneath it. Recently trimmed, that’s what his fingers had told him when they had brushed against it.

A new start. 

Maybe he hadn’t been the only one coming here with a pocketful of hope.

He watches as Keith pops open the suitcase and begins poking through it. Something in the vision of it gives his heart a set of wings, and now it flutters around in his chest, unable to settle down. The sight of Keith rummaging around in all his personal effects, seeing what he had brought with him, his hands in his clothes, unzipping the small travel cases to see where Shiro had tucked away the things Keith is most interested in. . .it makes him feel exposed in a way he's always felt Keith had a right to. And Keith is respectful about it. He doesn’t unfold his clothes but sets Shiro's shirts and pants neatly aside. Shiro gets the distinct impression, however, that Keith is taking it all in. How Shiro dresses now, what he had packed, the sort of presentation he had hoped to make of himself in all of this.

And he doesn’t seem displeased by any of it. 

After another minute of rummaging and unzipping, Keith finally stands up and turns around to face him. In his hands, Shiro can see the small tube of lube. What he doesn’t see —

“Condoms?”

Keith cants his head, the smirk on his lips curved by the devil’s own hand. “Is something going to happen?”

Shiro blinks. “I mean. . .I. . .I. . .” He sucks in a breath. Keith’s expression doesn’t change. “I’ll end up coming inside of you.”

“Is that a problem, Takashi?”

_Takashi._

God, but when has anyone ever said his name like _that_? With a voice low and syllables weighed carefully upon tongue before being sent rolling over lips. Like he could be worth the damnation, the sweetness too great not to taste. Keith’s eyes fix themselves on him, two points of black fire telling him there’s heaven or hell to be found here, and Shiro is the one who will decide which gates will be opening for them. 

“No,” Shiro says, but it’s more of a whispered confession. 

Keith chuckles, a brief and quiet sound, as he makes his way back over to the bed. If seduction could take human form, Shiro has no doubts that it would choose Keith as he stood there at that moment, half-dressed with that smirk on his lips, all devil’s delight. He reaches out, hooking his fingers on the waist of Keith’s pants, and tugs him over the last few inches. Within range of his mouth, Shiro leans forward and brushes his lips against Keith’s navel. 

The breath Keith audibly takes sends a thrill through him. Shiro flicks his tongue out, then traces a line with it along the thin trail of black hair. He pops open the button of his jeans. Keith lets him, standing there with the lube in his hand, gaze riveted by the way Shiro’s lips insist on moving lower. And they do, as Shiro parts the zipper and slowly begins peeling the fabric from Keith’s thighs, down to his knees.

“Lay back,” Keith murmurs, running a hand through Shiro’s hair. He grips a fistful, gives it a light tug, and slowly forces Shiro’s head back. None of it painful, but rather, arousing. 

Shiro could almost hate the way his cock stiffens at it all — the feel of Keith’s fingers, the demanding touch, the solid command of his voice. He licks his lips and glances up at Keith.

Bathed in the lights of the city and the shadows of the room, he’s a sight to make angels and devils alike weep for his beauty. He can think of nothing else at that moment. But Keith has always been beautiful. . .Shiro has never been able to escape that simple fact. Keith is a universal wonder, the keeper of his heart, and his love will be the only thing worth having in this whole damn world. 

Because without it. . .

“I love you,” Shiro whispers. 

The fingers in his hair twitch but don’t let go. Keith’s lips part. Something dark and heavy swims through his gaze, and for a moment, Shiro doesn’t know what door he opened inside of the man, only that whatever had been lurking behind it had waited patiently for a chance at freedom. Keith runs his tongue over his lips, which tremble faintly. He swallows and releases his grip on Shiro’s hair. His fingers drift along Shiro’s temple, across his cheekbone, then down to his jawline where they curve lightly around his chin.

That touch tells him everything. _I’ve waited a lifetime to hear those words from you._

But, Keith doesn’t say anything. Instead, he lowers his hand yet again, pressing it this time to Shiro’s chest and rolling him over onto his back. And Shiro complies, saying nothing but understanding everything. Because acceptance doesn’t always scream with emotion. Sometimes, it’s simply moving forward with all the things you’ve ever wanted.

Stepping out of his jeans, Keith then kicks them to the side. Seconds later, he removes his underwear, giving Shiro only a brief moment of memorizing the way Keith’s cock strains against the tight gray material before revealing his erection in full. He has an attractive cock, Shiro thinks, taking it all in visually. The head tapers nicely, well proportioned with the length. Not thick; Shiro could wrap his hand around it easily with finger-length to spare. It’s the sort of cock he’d love to suck off. 

Though, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards at that moment as Keith seats himself back over Shiro’s hips and pops open the top of the lube. The motion is smooth, all rainwater racing down windowpanes, and it takes Shiro a second to even realize what had happened. That Keith is sitting on top of him, naked, like he earned the right to that place long again and finally got to claim it for himself. 

Shiro runs a hand over his face and groans quietly into his hand. “Keith. . .”

“Don’t do anything,” Keith shoots back at him. 

And to make his point, Keith rocks himself forward, the tip of his cock brushing against Shiro’s stomach, and pins Shiro with a stare that begs him to retaliate just to let Keith play out the consequences. Shiro doesn’t have that in him, not right now. Not because he doesn’t want to see said consequences (because he does, dear God, _he does_ , but that’s a taunt for another night), but because he would rather see what Keith currently has in mind. It’s evident enough that he has a plan, and somewhere in that mix, it involves Shiro fucking him.

Tonight. Tomorrow. For the rest of their lives. 

When he doesn’t move, Keith lowers himself closer and brushes his lips against the back of Shiro’s hand. The same one still covering his mouth, having hoped to drown out the sound of his moaning over the sight of Keith on top of him. 

“Good boy,” Keith whispers with a kiss. He then promptly pushes himself back, though not completely upright. His back arched beautifully, Keith drizzles lube over his fingertips, then drops the tube unceremoniously to the bed as he reaches behind him. 

How had he gotten so lucky? That’s all Shiro can think right then. After all they had gone through, the struggles they had faced from the universe at large and their own personal choices, that he would be here now, years from those first unacknowledged moments of love between them. . .perhaps this is the Fate everyone talks about. Not the thing that had led him out into space only to fall into the hands of the Galra. Not the chance circumstances that had brought him to Death’s realm. But that one tiny string that had bound him and Keith together decades ago. 

Nothing had been able to sever it. And now, here they are. 

And Keith looks fucking exquisite up there, rocking over his thighs as he fingers himself open. Every so often, he rolls forward, grinding the head of his cock against Shiro’s stomach, his jaw dropping open as another soft pant works its way up his throat. His eyes closed, his body tensing and relaxing in response to his finger’s movements. 

Shiro imagines it. That first finger dipping in, slick with lube, testing the waters of Keith’s receptiveness. Then the addition of another when the first storm calms. The slow easing of his body, giving in to the pleasure being promised. 

“Shiro. . .”

It’s plaintive—a soft, needy spilling of his name from lips that refuse to close. 

“Shiro. . .”

Quieter now. More like a wish being made than a promise being kept. 

Even if Keith told him not to move, that’s near impossible now. Shiro reaches up and gently cups Keith’s right cheek. He rolls his thumb across the tip of the scar there, captivated by the way Keith nuzzles into his palm. But when he opens his mouth and sucks Shiro’s thumb inside, the whole world goes dark on him. A brief passing of seconds where there’s only the thunderous rush of blood through his heart, racing like a wolf hot in pursuit of prey, and the wet heat of Keith sinking through his skin. Shiro lets out a whine. 

“ _Takashi_. . .”

And just like that, everything comes rushing back into view. The way Keith rocks on top of him, his gaze half-lidded and fixed on his face. The shine on his lips from the spit that had slicked his thumb. The hand now wrapped around his wrist, guiding Shiro’s hand away from Keith’s cheek and down along his body, around the jut of his hip and over the curve of his ass where Shiro can _feel_ it now. The pumping of fingers, two of them, inside of Keith. He’s slick with lube around his hole, and Shiro tentatively presses his index finger to the rim. 

A soft keening sound trembles its way over Keith’s lips. Shiro reaches around blindly for the tube, and upon finding it, flicks the top open. Keith curves himself lower, pressing himself almost flat to Shiro’s body, the intention making itself known. And Shiro complies, drizzling a small amount lube down along Keith’s ass, his finger slicking itself up before adding it inside of Keith. He gasps, eyes flying open, and bites down on his lower lip. 

What Shiro wouldn’t give to swallow down that sound and every other bit of surprised pleasure Keith would give him. How sweet it would taste, knowing he could excite this man that much. 

Shiro works with Keith, fucking him open with their fingers. Slowing when Keith does, only to wait as Keith pants above him, collecting himself to move again. Maybe minutes pass, or just mere seconds. Shiro doesn’t know, nor does he care anymore, entranced by the sight and feel of Keith handing himself over to this thing between them. But as Keith starts to relax again, he can sense his hunger for more. His hips roll, working their fingers deeper. His whines become more insistent. And then, suddenly, Keith pops his fingers free and grabs at the waistband of Shiro’s briefs. 

Only then does Shiro follow suit, pulling his finger out and taking hold of Keith’s hips. Their eyes meet, Keith’s that stunning hazy purple again that reminds him of the way night steals into a sunset’s beauty, and in the span of a breath, Keith comes alive again. He growls low in his throat.

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

Shiro smirks up at him and tightens his grip over Keith’s hips. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”

Another breath, and everything shatters. Keith pulls himself upright, both hands planted firmly on Shiro’s chest, and he grins savagely down at him. 

“You haven’t earned that right yet.”

Wait. _What?_

Then, all of this. . .what had they been doing?

Keith slides himself down, straddling Shiro’s knees. He hooks his fingers once again around the waistband of Shiro’s underpants. Though not without an appreciative hum for the sight of his cock stretching the material. Keith then works the fabric down over Shiro’s hips. Inch by inch, until his cock reveals itself in full. Thick and wet and throbbing. Shiro would be lying to say it doesn’t ache, that he hasn’t wanted to touch it all this time, that he hadn’t just been thinking of flipping Keith around and fucking him into the mattress until they’re both spent. 

Is Keith going to suck him off then? 

Was that the whole point of this — getting there without actually _getting there_?

But Keith doesn’t lean any closer. He does lick his lips, and he sets Shiro with that hungry gaze of his, making Shiro wonder who would be the wolf and who the rabbit between them. Right now, he would like Keith to devour all of him. He’d already handed over his heart; the rest was only a matter of time. 

Grabbing the lube, Keith squeezes out a bit into his awaiting palm. Then, without a word, he wraps his hand around Shiro’s cock and gives it several languorous pumps. Shiro doesn’t bite back the moan. He lets out it, a sound full and deep in its pleasure, and struggles to remind himself not to come. 

Fuck, though, he’s going to come if Keith doesn’t stop. It’s been so long, and he’s been battling his arousal since that kiss outside the ramen shop. 

Laughter breaks into his panic. Shiro blinks, only to realize that Keith has stopped stroking him and instead has moved back up to his hips. He doesn’t straddle him like before. When their eyes meet, Shiro can’t look away. Not even as Keith grabs the base of his cock, steadying him. Not even when that tight slick heat consumes the head of his cock. His brain knows what that is, that feeling of absolute bliss melting throughout his entire body. He’s felt this before, but not quite like this. 

Because he can’t look away from Keith’s face. That burning intensity of his gaze even as his mouth twists with a faint grimace. Another inch of Shiro’s cock taken. Another moment to adjust to the pressure of it. And still, Keith continues to slowly sink down over it, taking him bit by bit until he’s completely seated on Shiro’s cock. 

Only then does Shiro release the breath he’s been holding. 

“Fuck,” Keith says with a laugh. The sound a bit strained, but the relief evident. He tightens himself around Shiro, eliciting a harsh grunt, then laughs again. Easier that time. “I thought I’d adjusted enough, but you’re bigger than I anticipated.”

His cock twitches. Shiro bites down harshly on his bottom lip and closes his eyes. _Don’t come yet, Takashi, you fucking idiot._

But he could after hearing that. Knowing that Keith had taken him all in, and now sat there, his ass cheeks warm against his thighs, his body a delightful sort of heavy over his hips. The weight of them together. They could be a devastating force.

They have been before. 

“Cat got your tongue, Shiro?” Keith teases.

This time, it’s Shiro’s turn to bark out a tense laugh. It feels like a tightrope wire on the verge of snapping, sending God knows what crashing to the ground. 

Shiro finally says, “You feel better than I imagined.”

“Going to come already, old-timer?”

A smirk overrides the smile on his mouth. Vicious in its challenge. Shiro slides his hands up Keith’s thighs and settles them over his hips. “Not until you do, Keith.”

“Good. Because I’m tired of holding back.”

It’s then that Keith begins to move. A slow rolling of his hips, a breath taken, then the easy lift up, then back, then down again. He keeps his hands pressed to Shiro’s chest, leveraging himself. And Shiro uses his to guide Keith’s hips. Nothing about it is desperate. No punishing drive or world-ending pace. Keith moves steadily, denying Shiro any chance to take control. He does it quietly, with a look or by tightening up around his cock until all Shiro can do is gasp and relent.

And Shiro finds he doesn’t hate it, that loss of control. With Keith the one steering them both, he knows nothing more could go wrong at this moment. There’s only them, connected. All those lost bits finally settling into place. Being with Keith is like coming back home, only Shiro never understood just how soul-filling such a place could be until now. 

Moonlight spills over Keith’s side, and with every subtle rise and fall of his hips, the shadows slip over his skin, a waterfall of dark and light constantly displacing and replacing. All of it Keith. And it’s stunning, watching it all play out, as Keith rides him to orgasm. Keith closes his eyes, but Shiro can’t stop watching him. The way pleasure softens his features is a sight Shiro never wants to forget. 

Keith's lips part as his breathing starts to hitch, and his movements grow erratic. 

“Shiro. . . .Shiro. . . .Shiro. . .”

Over and over, Keith pants out his name. Keith’s eyes are still closed, but his head now hangs low. And it makes Shiro want to do so many things — lean up and kiss him, cup his cheek, flip him over, jerk him off. Looking far too vulnerable, needing everything Shiro has to offer him. 

It’s the only way Shiro has ever wanted to see Keith break. Undone by their union alone. 

His hips hiccup through their next roll. Shiro growls as Keith’s hole spasms around the base of his cock when Keith bottoms out. 

“Keith. . .I can’t. . .”

And he really can’t. The world is spiraling out of control around him. Too much heat, too little thought. Everything focused on the way Keith sounds, how he feels. Knowing this is all he could ever want, because it’s always supposed to feel this damn good being with the one you love. 

Not like Sisyphus and his boulder, forever looking up that hill. 

“It’s okay, Takashi. . .let go. . .”

But for Keith, he could be Atlas, bearing their universe across his shoulders. Only Keith would never let him do that alone.

The world goes dark. Hardly the star-stealing variety, but that promise of something new. And at the very edges of that darkness, smoldering embers start to glow. Shiro feels that heat ripple out from his core. It overtakes him, consuming. Through it all, he can hear the rapid beat of his heart, the moan that Keith makes. 

A lifetime could have gone by. Shiro doesn’t remember it, only the sensation of emptying. That satisfying sort of empty that leaves him weightless. Tethered to reality only by the man bringing him to orgasm. 

Keith is a force of nature. Shiro has always known this fact, one that has proven itself time and time again. From Keith’s Garrison days to his leadership as the Black Paladin. He was no more tamable than a hurricane itself. But that has always been the strength of his spirit. That they’re even here now. . .it’s all probably due to that very fact. 

Anyone else would have left Shiro to his own miserable choices. 

But here Keith is, saving him yet again. 

His hands slip from Keith’s hips down to his thighs. The muscles beneath his fingertips quiver, and Shiro draws circles over them, all in the hope of easing them under their exertion. Keith breathes out. Shiro leans up. The hand on his chest stops him from going any further.

“You’re covered in cum,” Keith says, his voice a ragged, hoarse mess. The tone? Terribly amused. 

Shiro glances down at his stomach and notes the stringy mess cooling against his skin. “So, you came after all.”

“You did too.”

And to make his point, Keith shifts his hips with a grunt. Shiro’s cock is still buried inside of him, but with that slight movement, an inch or so slips out, and with it, Shiro can feel a strange slickness sliding down around his length. 

“I’ve never done that before,” Shiro states, surprised at himself, though he has no idea why.

“Never?”

Why does Keith sound even more surprised? It’s almost insulting.

“They didn’t like the idea of the mess.”

“Relationships are messy things.”

“Apparently.”

“But. . .you wanted to?”

Shiro pauses before replying, which has Keith lifting an eyebrow at him. The answer, though, comes easily enough. “I actually never thought about it with them.”

“Yet, here we are. . .” Keith muses. 

“Here we are.”

Shiro groans as Keith sits up, and his cock slips out completely, half-hard. Dropping his head back to the pillow, he stares up at the ceiling. Funnily enough, he has to resist the urge to drag his fingers through the mess Keith had left over his stomach. 

“Did you like it?”

Keith pushes himself to the side of the bed, where he takes a seat and stares down at his hands like he’s suddenly found a new lifeline running along his palm. “No one’s ever done that before.”

“Come inside of you?” Shiro asks, oddly intrigued now. 

“Yeah.” Keith flashes a grin over at Shiro. “Looks like you got a first out of me too.”

He wants more of those, Shiro decides. More things they’ve never experienced before as they fumble through their lives together. He reaches out and drags one of Keith’s hands over to his side. 

For a moment, they sit in silence, their fingers tangling haphazardly until, one by one, Keith laces them together. 

“I want this with you, Keith.”

“And what _this_ are you talking about exactly?”

Shiro can see it. A lifetime running out into the distance, made of moments just like this and ones they could have never imagined experiencing. Rainy days and desert storms. Hotel rooms and the places they’ll call home. The gray streaks in Keith’s hair and the undying fire of his eyes. 

“Forever.”

The one he never thought he would get to have.

“Oh?” Keith huffs out that sound, quiet but still amused. The corner of his mouth twitches as he gives Shiro’s hand a small squeeze. “It’s yours. So don’t let go this time.”


End file.
